ENERGY STAR® Awards Presented to 18 VA Medical Centers

WASHINGTON, DC -- Eighteen Veterans Affairs Medical Centers (VAMC) received the ENERGY STAR® Award today in recognition of their achievements in energy efficiency. David Garman, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy at the Department of Energy (DOE); Christie Todd Whitman, Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); and Anthony Principi, Secretary of the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), presented the awards in a ceremony at the VA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"Now more than ever before, it is critical that we provide federal leadership to save money through smart energy practices in our nation's hospitals," Assistant Energy Secretary Garman said. "These scarce resources can be better applied to serving the medical needs of our veterans and all Americans."

The winning Veterans Affairs Medical Centers were identified and qualified through a joint effort by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Department of Energy's Federal Energy Management Program, the Environmental Protection Agency, and DOE's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL). The joint EPA/DOE Energy Star program recognizes buildings that are within the top 25 percent in the nation in energy efficiency among their peers. The ENERGY STAR® program for rating and labeling building energy performance, now in its fourth year, has recognized more than 1,000 U.S. buildings as models of energy efficiency.

ENERGY STAR® awards support President Bush's National Energy Policy (NEP), which calls on DOE to "extend...the Department of Energy's ENERGY STAR® efficiency program to include schools, retail buildings, health care facilities and homes." Key NEP goals are for the United States to increase conservation efforts, accelerate the protection and improvement of the environment and enhance the nation's energy security.